The idea of ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations is not new to businesses. Besides preventing legal trouble, legal compliance also promotes good business practices and strengthens your reputation. This also holds true for cybersecurity compliance. But if you do not have firsthand experience with these requirements, you might wonder why cybersecurity compliance is important in the first place.
Similar to complying with all relevant laws and regulations for traditional business practices, cybersecurity compliance fulfills digital safety requirements. This includes adherence to privacy regulations, data protection laws, and information security standards. In addition to safekeeping sensitive details, cybersecurity compliance also prevents legal troubles, averts financial loss, and heightens client trust.
To help you fully grasp the importance of cybersecurity compliance, here’s an overview of its requirements and why they matter.
Why is Cybersecurity Compliance Important?
Cybersecurity compliance remains important for a variety of reasons. When you adhere to cybersecurity compliance standards that apply to your business, you can easily reap the following benefits:
- Meeting laws, regulations, and standards related to cybersecurity.
- Protecting personal information and financial data from bad parties.
- Ensuring clients’ rights to privacy and earning their trust.
- Mitigating the risk of legal challenges.
- Preventing financial losses that result from data theft or government penalties.
- Safeguarding reputational damage that may stem from poor compliance.
- Strengthening brand reputation with clients and stakeholders.
- Enhancing your business’ cybersecurity with advanced practices.
- Improving your appeal for investment rounds and acquisitions.
Which Popular Standards Can You Meet With Cybersecurity Compliance?
After understanding why cybersecurity compliance is important, it becomes easier for you to determine how it helps you meet popular laws, regulations, and standards. While IT consulting experts can explain these standards to you, it doesn’t hurt to have the basics at hand.
Some of these sought-after standards include the following:
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was created by the European Union (EU). As a result, it maintains strict standards and penalties about data privacy and security for businesses catering to residents of the EU. Additionally, the United Kingdom, which is no longer part of the EU, has its own GDPR.
HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is a U.S. data privacy standard. Besides strictly protecting patient information in healthcare settings, HIPAA also extends to information safety in digital systems. As a result, if you manage health records in any capacity, it is crucial that you follow all HIPAA guidelines. Otherwise, you can be subject to serious legal and financial penalties that also lead to reputational damage.
NIST Cybersecurity Framework
The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is a set of cybersecurity regulations created by the American National Institute of Standards and Technology. While voluntary, it is one of the most comprehensive guides on protecting your network, data, and business operations. Furthermore, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework can also help you meet other popular security standards. Consequently, this makes it important for you to follow its guidelines without any compromise.
CMMC
The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification comes from the U.S. Department of Defense. It applies to business partners in the Defense Industrial Base (DIB). In order to meet CMMC requirements, you need to follow stringent yet necessary cybersecurity practices. Once you get your CMMC, it lets you establish your expertise over the DoD’s requirements from its DIB partners.
Each set of these standards and regulations brings its own set of requirements to the table. But cybersecurity compliance experts can easily help you meet their specific demands. Working with experts allows you to steer clear of heavy legal repercussions, financial penalties, and reputational damage.
How Do You Ensure Cybersecurity Compliance?
Once you learn why cybersecurity compliance is important, your next line of thought might be about adhering to its standards. But that process becomes easy when you reach out to cybersecurity experts, such as a managed IT services provider (MSP).
After understanding your requirements, cybersecurity experts take steps that include but are not limited to:
- Adhering to all applicable laws and regulations for digital data protection.
- Setting up your network and hardware to safeguard data accessibility.
- Ensuring a secure channel to transmit financial information such as credit card transactions.
- Establishing standard policies for retaining and utilizing customer information.
- Installing security tools to prevent cyberattacks and data theft.
- Monitoring ongoing network traffic and activities to detect and resolve vulnerabilities.
Contact SecureTech to Fulfill Compliance Standards Today
At SecureTech, we specialize in establishing IT security and compliance standards for various industries. Whether your organization handles medically sensitive information or is a member of the Defense Industrial Base, our experts can help you fulfill your compliance requirements.
To schedule a hands-on consultation for meeting compliance standards, contact SecureTech today.